Judith Merkle Riley

by The Master of All Desires

“In nomine patris, filio, et spiritu sanctu,” intoned the priest who had accompanied them, finishing the prayer with the sign of the cross. The dank, stony room smelled of mice and mildew.

  “Orders. The surgeons want your heads,” said the executioner. “You are condemned anyway. What does it matter if it’s now or later?”

  In the next room, beneath the heavy stone vaulting, the greatest surgeons in the known world waited. As they heard the last of four dull thunk sounds, they nodded to one another and tied their heavy leather aprons over their doublets; the heads were ready. Freshness was essential; the experimental material must be in a condition as close to the king’s own head as possible. On a long oak table were laid the splintered remnants of the fatal lance, and several sets of dissecting tools. The surgeons looked up as the door opened, and two of the executioner’s assistants came in with a tub, awash in blood, containing the four heads.

  The celebrated Vesalius himself lifted the first head out by the hair and laid it on the table. The other surgeons, like Vesalius, stripped to their doublets, their shirtsleeves rolled up, positioned the head while Ambroise Paré, the king’s own surgeon, the brilliant battlefield surgeon who had saved The Scar, who had invented the ligature of arteries, who had revolutionized the treatment of gunshot wounds, picked up the shattered lance. With a single sure blow, he drove the splintered weapon into the right eye at exactly the angle that it had entered the king’s. Vesalius picked up the scalpel and laid open the skull.

  Grave, bearded heads clustered around the table as the skull was opened.

  “—here, the lesser wing of the sphenoid—”

  “—the length, is it the same?”

  “—there is no question. The lance has penetrated to the brain—”

  “—the deeper splinter that remains in the king’s eye socket, can it be removed without fatal bleeding?”

  “—if it is not, the poison cannot drain from the wound—”

  “—brain poisoning—”

  “—a fresh infusion of blood—”

  “—another surgery—”

  By the time that the fourth head was dissected, the surgeons had planned the remaining treatment of the king’s wound. And they knew that no matter what they did, it would prove mortal.

  ***

  On the tenth day, the king briefly recovered consciousness and called the Dauphin to him. “My son,” he said, “you are going to be without your father, but not without his blessing. I pray to God that you will be more fortunate than I have been.” The wretched, sickly boy fainted, and recovering in his chamber, began to weep: “My God, how can I live if my father dies?” And though even the mighty Cardinal of Lorraine himself offered consolation, for that brief moment, the simpleminded boy had seen the dim mists of the future open, and knew that nothing could save him, not his pretty new wife, not his clever uncles-in-law, not his brooding mother. Death had looked down at him through that opening, and turned his decayed little spine to water.

  That night, as the king’s breath rasped in and out, the surgeons conferred on a last, desperate measure: they would trepan the skull. But when they removed the bandages, so much pus spilled from the eye socket that they knew no operation of which they were capable could save the king’s brain. They rebandaged the fevered head and sent word to the priests to come and administer the last rites.

  ***

  It was the custom of the widowed queens of France to wear white, but sealed in her rooms, Catherine de Medici ordered mourning clothes of black, like the widow of a lesser house, like the garments of an Italian courtier. The brilliant gold embroideries, the lush, bright velvets, the dappled silks were sent away, laden over the arms of her waiting women, and workmen came to drape her apartments in the Louvre, her furniture, her windows, in black. Wandering about the darkened rooms, her face swollen with weeping, kneeling at her prie-dieu unable to fix her eyes on her prayer book, sitting up at night in the dark, agonized thoughts came to the queen. One night, she woke her attendants to tell them that her coat of arms must be changed. The next day, when they hoped she had forgotten, she sent for a scholar from the College of Arms and banished the rainbow, which old King Francis himself had given her, and herself sketched a stump of a broken lance in a cartouche and beneath it the motto, Lacrimae hinc, hinc dolor, “Here are tears, here is sorrow.”

  But in the perpetual gloom of her black-draped chambers, so dark that they must be lit in daytime with candles, the queen heard a rustling, as if of rotted grave clothes, and hidden laughter that sounded like stones falling into a crypt. And then came the voice that made her insides twist with pain and her head throb as if it would burst: Great queen, the duchess will never again have his heart. See how I have fulfilled your heart’s desire?

  But Catherine was a Medici, and made of hard stuff. She whispered into the shadows: You have not won yet. I shall seek greater magic. I shall defeat you.

  Oh, great queen, what a worthy opponent you are. Not in a thousand years have I met such a one. But before you think you have saved yourself, remember your other wishes.

  “My children!” gasped the queen.

  Why, yes, your children. Remember what you wished? That the Queen of Scots should no longer influence your son—

  “No, no!”

  Oh, but I am not done—and you wished that they all have thrones. Just see how I have arranged to fulfill your greatest desire of all.

  Molten steel poured into the queen’s body and grew hard. The ladies who answered the ringing of the little silver bell she took up thought they saw something in the corner of the room that looked like a statue, a ghost, a demon, but one that still held the shape of the queen.

  “Madame Gondi,” said the granite thing in the corner, “have a courier take the fastest horse in the king’s stable and take this letter to Salon de Provence, to the house of Nostradamus. Tell him that I would have him come to Chaumont, and there I will meet him.” And as Madame Gondi disappeared, she spoke to Madame d’Alamanni. “Madame, how stands it with the court, and with my son, the king?”

  “Your Majesty, your son has fallen ill, but he has given orders that Constable Montmorency and Marshall St.-André shall have the honor of standing guard over the king’s body for the forty days of mourning.”

  “No one but the Guises could have told him this. So now, in other words, the Guises now rule unchallenged.”

  “Yes, Majesty.”

  “And by the end of forty days, with the Constable and the Marshall unable to stir from the catafalque, there will be nothing and no one left to hinder them.”

  “Majesty, they but hold power during your hours of grief.”

  “My hours of grief are over. I wish you to call the King’s Treasurer, so I may find out where the accounts of the kingdom stand. I heard the late king, my husband, say that the soldiers have not been paid these three years.”

  “But, Majesty—”

  “No buts. That is the stuff of insurrection. And I wish to know if the Lutherans have begun to show their faces, now that a child rules. Bring me their pamphlets; I want to know what they are saying, they and their treacherous preachers. If they speak a word against me, they are to be caught and hanged. And—oh, yes, send for the Demoiselle de La Roque. I would have her come to Chaumont, where I will confer with her in private. Send a guard to make sure she does not change her mind. There is a sacrifice she must make for the good of the throne. But—tell her—tell her that—the queen has a special—reward—for her for all her services.”

  ***

  That very evening, a fast courier from Genoa pulled an exhausted Turkish barb into the courtyard of the banking establishment of Fabris and Monteverdi at Lyons. Dropping his packet of messages with the eldest of the Fabris brothers, he paused only long enough to take a brief meal and change horses, then rode off into the dark. The moon was half full, enough to light the road, and despite the fact that he carried nothing of value, the dark-clad courier was armed with an Italian rapier, a long dagger, a hidden misericord,
an harquebus and a string of powder charges around his neck. Nicolas’s face was gaunt with fatigue, and he had gone unshaven for the last two weeks, but his eyes were determined. His father, his graceless, hard-hearted old father, had shown his human side at last. In a letter sent from Paris, he had forgiven him everything, had given him permission to marry, and had told him that if he did not hasten, the treachery of the great would lay the love of his life in her grave.

  Twenty-Two

  Death to the sorcerer!” Above the screaming crowd in the Place de Grève, the robed figure impaled on the tall stake was scarcely visible.

  “Death to Nostradamus!” Men and women in clogs and rough clothes scrambled to throw more straw on the faggots.

  “Burn the wizard who killed the king!”

  “Au feu, au feu!” A man set a burning brand into the straw, where it smoldered a moment, then shot up a narrow tongue of flame. At the edge of the square near the ornate grilles of the front gate of the Hôtel de Ville, a half-dozen archers in broad helmets and metal-studded cuirasses lounged with their arms folded.

  “Who is Nostradamus?” said one of them.

  “Didn’t you hear? A wizard who cast a death-spell on the king.” The flames had caught on the hem of the gown, and a heavy smoke obscured the rest of the figure.

  “Who was he working for?”

  “They say the agents of the English queen—” There was a cheer as the flames suddenly exploded through the straw-filled effigy, and it dissolved in a fierce blaze.

  “I take it he escaped.”

  “They’ve hunted for him everywhere, but he’s gone. So they had to take it out on something—”

  “Ha! If he ever shows his face in Paris again, he’ll get a warm welcome, that’s for sure!”

  “All sorcerers should burn. Burn here, then burn in Hell.”

  “Well, Anael,” said Nostradamus, who was watching the scene in the waters of his divining bowl, “if I had ever planned to visit that wretched city again, I certainly wouldn’t now.” Even at midnight, the day’s heat was still close in the attic room of the house in Salon, and Nostradamus, his face streaming sweat, was regretting the heavy gown beneath his diviner’s robe. In the candlelight, the brass of his armillary sphere glinted dully, and Anael was scarcely visible except as a sort of dark vapor.

  “They aren’t terribly logical,” remarked the dark figure. “Predicting the future isn’t the same as causing it.”

  “Parisians. Dreadful people. Poor pay, threats of the Inquisition, and now they burn me in effigy. Did I ever tell you about that inn at the sign of Saint-Michel? The sheets were dirty, and they overcharged for that despicable vinegar they called wine—”

  “A hundred times, Michel. You’re getting old and grouchy. What’s worse, you’re getting so forgetful you repeat your grouches.”

  “Me? Never! My mind’s as sharp as a whole boxful of new needles. But I’m certainly not going to travel again. My dyspepsia, to say nothing of the ingratitude of folk like that—”

  “I wouldn’t count on that if I were you, Michel,” said the Angel of Past and Future History.

  ***

  Now I remember the exact day very well, because it was the day I went to the printer’s with the final draft of my new dialogue, the Cena, which was not exactly my typical elevated style, but what I was, if not what I craved to be. If they don’t like it, well, it’s just too bad, I thought. As I set down the manuscript, the printer brought out for my examination the page proofs of the tastefully black-bordered edition of my forthcoming collection of fashionable poems of grief, entitled The Garden of Sorrows, to be distributed only in the most exclusive court circles. Holding true work and false at the very same moment, and hearing the printer praise both equally, set me into a meditation on hypocrisy, which led me to an idea for another Dialogue, and so distracted me that I walked beneath a ladder, which always brings bad luck.

  When I stepped into our salle on my return, I noticed that something had gone dreadfully wrong. Aunt Pauline, as white as one of her ghosts, her eyes sunk in deep circles, sat unmoving on her big, cushioned chair. Beside her stood the Abbé, more shriveled than usual, his face agitated. Around them stood six heavily armed archers in the queen-mother’s livery.

  “What is this?” I asked.

  “Her Majesty, the queen-mother, wishes to consult you, and orders that you bring with you the box of which you have custody.” It had come. My heart sank into my shoes.

  “But—but Her Majesty is not resident in Paris,” I said.

  “She wants you at Chaumont, and we are sent to see that you arrive safely,” replied the captain of the archers.

  “I—I’ll need to pack a few things,” I said.

  “You’ll want for nothing there. You are not to pack, but to come directly. Is this the box, this one just sitting out here?” There sat Menander, in his usual place on the sideboard, making the soft, busy, almost inaudible humming sound that he did almost all the time, now that he was totally engaged in thought. You useless, troublesome box full of ill fortune, I thought. This is where it ends. When she finds you are useless, she’ll decide I know too many secrets—and I haven’t got the fear of you to protect me anymore. But I swear, Menander, I won’t let you win. Something, I’ll think of something…

  As we clattered through the city gates, I looked at the grim-faced men who surrounded me and tried to engage them in conversation. But they didn’t answer, and one of them, younger than the others, looked away. Under orders, I thought. They’re afraid I’ll talk my way out of this. As we rode south into the rolling autumnal countryside, where the first yellow leaves were beginning to show among the green, it became clearer and clearer that nothing good was awaiting me at the queen’s isolated chateau, so far from my relatives and friends, and any hope of help.

  ***

  It was already past dark, and the night watch was in the street, when Madame Tournet sent Baptiste, armed with a cutlass, to answer a frantic banging on her door.

  “Madame Tournet, it’s me, Nicolas,” came the cry through the door, and Auntie heaved herself up out of bed, clad only in her nightcap, and allowed her maid to drape her in an immense robe de chambre and light a candle for her. As she entered the salle, she saw Nicolas and his father, wrapped in heavy cloaks, and carrying lanterns, standing in the doorway.

  “Come in, come in, and sit down,” she said, and the bobbing candles of servants moved here and there in the dark, as chairs were drawn up and a bottle of wine and cups fetched from the sideboard.

  “Where is your niece?” asked the old man. “My son arrived only this evening. A priest is waiting at the chapel of St.-Jacques de la Boucherie, and we will see her married this very night and out of the country at dawn, before the queen-mother’s spies ever suspect what has happened.”

  “I sent a boy to your house less than an hour ago. Didn’t you get my message?” said Auntie. “They’ve come and taken her away.”

  “She’s gone?” said Nicolas, his eyes full of despair. “Where, for God’s sake, did they tell you?”

  “To Chaumont-sur-Loire,” said Aunt Pauline. “Under heavy guard.”

  “A dreadful place,” said Scipion Montvert. “They say the queen-mother keeps a ghastly tower full of magic enchantments at Chaumont, where she casts spells with the aid of the diviners and sorcerers she gathers there.”

  “A bad omen, that wicked castle. It’s clear to me that the queen’s mourning has at last turned to rage and vengeance. And where should this vengeance fall? Not on herself, for using black magic, but upon the head of Menander, or even on Sibille, for owning it. There is no doubt in my mind that she has laid plans to destroy the head of Menander the Undying.”

  “And with it my Sibille,” said Nicolas, his face horrified. “I’ll go, I’ll go this very moment—”

  “Even for a Montvert, the gates of Paris won’t open before dawn,” said Madame Tournet. “I beg you both to stay here the night. I—I need the company.”

  After they
had convinced Nicolas that he must sleep, the old banker sat up with Auntie while the candles burned themselves flat, drinking bottle after bottle of wine.

  “My only son, you understand—” said the old man.

  “I’ve looked out for her since she was born—” said Auntie.

  “If I let him go, or make him stay—either way I lose him,” said the old banker, holding his head in his hands. “Love, it’s a disaster—”

  “It’s more orderly the proper way, the arranged way,” agreed Auntie. But in her mind she was imagining her father standing over her as she signed the marriage contract with the man she could never love.

  “One should marry first, the right way, and then learn to love,” said the banker, but in his heart rose the image of a brown-faced, dark-eyed girl at a certain fountain in Florence, filling her pitcher. Carefully, quickly, he erased the image and replaced it with the narrow, sickly visage of his wife, an heiress of good family, a prize, his father’s choice. His father was right, of course. His father had always been right. That is how fathers are.

  “Yes, that is the way it should be,” said Auntie, pouring another cupful of wine. But in Montvert’s place, she was seeing a joyful, beautiful young man, playing the lute on a flat southern rooftop with his friends. Two pallid girls and a sickly boy, come for a cure at the spa, sat on the rooftop nearby, listening to the music beneath the stars. Oh, what a feeling in her heart at the memory. How much I loved him. But not for me, her soul whispered. At least Hélène had love like that once. But I, never. It was my fate.

  Then she saw him, the one whose heart she’d craved, lying in a pool of his own blood at the foot of a ladder, and heard again the screaming, and saw again the men going through his clothes, and discarding the book, and the old man taking up the love letter that had brought the boy there, and tearing it to pieces in his rage. The blood, the blood everywhere. The old man smeared the blood across Hélène’s face as he beat her, he dipped his hands again and again in crimson and smeared it on her as he tore at her clothes, her dead brother’s doublet and shirt. And she howled, her hair all bloody, her mouth like the wound from which had flowed her young lover’s life. What matter the old man had promised the unseen watcher he wouldn’t hurt them? He’d lied, and she had seen what she had seen. The memory squeezed Auntie’s heart like a vise. Death and love. It’s come full circle. “Love’s a curse,” she said.